The Effects of Self-Objectification in Politics

        According to the movie "MissRepresentation," the United States of America is in thirty-third place out of forty-nine in terms of high income countries for women in legislature. They make up 19.8% of the 535 current seats in Congress, twenty-two out of one hundred seats in the U.S. Senate, 19.3% of the 435 seats in the U.S. House, and 23.7% of the 312 seats in the Statewide Elective Executive Office as of 2018, according to the Center for American Women and Politics. What do these numbers all have in common? They show the horrible underrepresentation of women in U.S. politics, while they make up 50.8% of the U.S. population, according to a 2011 study done by the Women's Health USA. Why do women make up the majority of the population and yet fail to make up more than a fourth of U.S. politicians? According to the National Public Radio, three reasons behind this vague, complicated question (out of seven): "1. Women are much less likely than men to think they are qualified to run for office. 2. Women are less likely than men to receive the suggestion to run for office — from anyone. 3. Women are still responsible for the majority of child care and household tasks." According to the U.S. Department of Labor Blog, women make up less than 47% of the U.S. workforce, and yet they make up more than half the population; as seen in the high percentage of unemployed women, though there are obvious exceptions, many women choose to stay home and do domestic tasks as opposed to further their education and pursue a career, which are expectations that completely oppose those given to men. According to the Boston Globe, women make up 97.5% of preschool and kindergarten teachers and 94.4% of childcare workers, statistics which when compared to first statistics I listed in the beginning of this post show the enforcement of "traditional" values and gender roles even in the workplace.
        The McNair Scholars Research Journal defines self-objectification as "regular exposure to objectifying experiences that socialize girls and women to engage in self-objectification, whereby they come to internalize this view of themselves as an object or collection of body parts." It seems strange and rather contradictory to basic desires in humans, such as to succeed and to stand out, as by self-objectifying, women accept their mistreatment and being valued for their body rather than their minds, incorporating it into their actions and beings. How can a person with no mind be a politician? Of course women have minds, but the self-objectification extends to the point at which, as mentioned in MissRepresentation, women believe that their voice does not matter in politics. This leads to women not running for office as well as opposing women that do run only for their gender. Objectification and self-objectification are seen in the lack of encouragement for women to run for office, and the clear lack of support for them should they decide to choose a career in politics. MissRepresentation states that though American society is seen as one of the most progressive, it is in reality one of the least progressive societies toward the success of women as a whole.